tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041Wed, 23 May 2018 04:30:55 +0000Invisible HandAdam Smith no ideologueAdam Smith and Religous BeliefPaul SamuelsonInvisible HandsMoral SentimentsLooney TunesMarketsAdam Smith's LegacyDivision of LabourAnnouncementself-interestMercantile Political EconomyAdam Smith QuotationsLaissez-FaireBargainingCharles DarwinNicholas Phillipson and Adam SmithSelfishnessAdam SmithCapitalismGeneral EquilibriumSmith on MetaphorsAdam Smith Use of Invisible Hand metaphorGovernment InterventionsLaissez FaireJoe StiglitzLibertyAdam Smith on BargainingAdam Smith on EducationAyn RandAdam Smith BiographyGenesis SeriesHomo EconomicusInvisible-HandJealousy of tradeKeynesWealth Of NationsAdam Smith and MoralityAdam Smith on MarketsAdam Smith on RegulationBanking CrisisBanking crisesChinese Earthquake ExampleDaniel KleinKarl MarxLabour Theory of ValueMandevilleNatural LibertyOscar langePanmure HousePropertyWarren SamuelsAmartya SenDavid HumeHistory of EconomicsPropensity to Exchangeself interestAdam Smith On ReligionAdam Smith on Self InterestBernard MandevilleChicago 'Adam Smith'ColoniesDavid Graeber ReviewEvolutionFree TradeMan of SystemPolanyiRationalitytaxationAustrian EconomistsBehavioural EconomicsChomskyDas Adam Smith ProblemDiscover CapitalismGovernmentGreedGrowthMisuse of quotationsRobert BurnsWelfare Economics'ButcherAdam Smith InstituteAdam Smith on Employer-Labour CombinationsAdam Smith's Use of Invisible Hand metaphorAppropriate Use of QuotationsBankingBeggar Thy NeighbourBrewerCSRChinaDr David GraeberEducation ProvisionHayekJacob VinerJames HuttonJohn NashKirkcaldy Adam SmithLibertarianismMarx v SmithMathematicsMetaphorsNatural SelectionNoam ChomskyProfitsProvidenceRegulationRisk AversionUnintended ConsequencesWealthAdam FergusonAdam Smith On MetaphorsAdam Smith Price TheoryAdam Smith on Self Interest and SympathyArrowBig governmentBrad DelongCivil SocietyCommercial SocietyDeirdre McCloskeyDon BoudreauxEquilibriumFriedmanGovernment FailureGreenspanHistory of Economic Thought (HET) ConferenceInequalityInternet ConnectionJ. S. MillJim OttesonLoony TunesLost LegacyMalthusMerchants and ManufacturersMisesPanmurePhysiocratsPigouPredictionsProductive LabourProtectionRational Expectations HypothesisReal WagesSmith On GovernmentSmith's MetaphorsSpontaneous OrderStiglitzTaxesTragedy of the CommonsUtopiaimpartial spectatorreligionAcademic freedomAdam Smith on DefenceAdministrationAppropriate quotationsBenevolenceBenthamCantillonCarlyleCharles Darwin Invisible HandChristianityClimate ChangeCo-operationCoase TheoremCompetitionConferencesDavid FriedmanDefenceDistributive JusticeDugald StewartEast India CompanyEconomists ViewEditions of Wealth Of NationsEmpireEmploymentExternalitiesFreidrich List; Protectionism; Wealth Of NationsFriedrich ListGeorge StiglerGlobalisationHard sciencesHome economicusInappropriate quotationsInternational Adam Smith SocietyJames WattJohn LockeJoseph BlackJusticeManagenment by PoliticiansMark BlaugMilton FriedmanMoneyNeoclassical economicsNeoclassical theoryNicholas GruenNight Watchman StatesNoticesPareto Optimality and General EquilibriumPer capita income pre-1800PoliticsPosts NumbersPrisoner's DilemmaProtectionismRicardoRothbardRyan HanleySlavery; East India CompanySmith and CapitalismSmith's BooksSoviet SocialismState InterventionState capitalismSteve MedemaThomas JeffersonToil and TroubleUS historyand Adam Smith Quotationsand Baker'competittionintentional designland reform'Paint'11755 'Paper'; Dugald Stewart?AA Book ReviewAdamAdam Smith On CapitalismAdam Smith StatueAdam Smith and Ayn RandAdam Smith and Natural DisastersAdam Smith and Pin MakingAdam Smith and Religous BeliefsAdam Smith and Rising Real WagesAdam Smith and SelfishnessAdam Smith and the Pin factoryAdam Smith no ideolologyAdam Smith on Absolute AdvantageAdam Smith on AmericaAdam Smith on Earthquakes in ChinaAdam Smith on GovernmentAdam Smith on Origins of LanguageAdam Smith on RhetoricAdam Smith on SlaveryAdam Smith on SpeculationAdam Smith on TaxationAdam Smith on TradeAdam Smith on WarAdam Smith on the 'natural wage'Adam Smith's BiographyAdam Smith's BirthdayAdam Smith's Historical ApproachAdam Smith: 'father of economicsAgricultureAmbitionAmerican DisturbancesAnnoucement VIIAnnouncememntAnnouncement XXAustralian Labour GovernmentBalliol CollegeBarnard MandevilleBarterBlogging StatsBook Review: Qiggin's Zombie EconomicsBooks on Adam SmithBorrowingBoswellBurkeButcherChartered Joint Stock Trading CompaniesColbertCollective BargainingConservativeCorporate Social ResponsibilityCorruptionCostsCriminalityCuriosity CornerDe RetzDebreuDegreesDismal ScienceDistributistDonald WinchDr MandevilleDr QuesnayEAEPEEUEconomic PrincipalsEfficient Market HypothesesElizabethan ReformsEmma RothschildEnlightenmentEntrepreneursEquityEvolutionary EconomicsExchangeFAQsFamilyFeminismFoucaultFrances HutchesonFrans de WaalFree MarketsFreidrich List; hamilton; Protectionism; Wealth Of NationsFrugalityFundayGDPGeologyGeorge Mason UniversityGlobal Capitalism and Johan NorbergGold and SilverGovernment DebtGreat WheelGuild MonopolistsHET 2008 ConferenceHahnHendersonHerbert SpencerHirschmanHistory of AstronomyHugh BlairHuman NatureHuman Nature Self bettermentHutchesonHuttonI PencilIan S. RossIdeologyIncomesIndustrial RevolutionInnovationInterest RatesIntolleranceInvisble HandsInvisble handInvisible Hand and General EquilibriumIslamic EconomicsIslamic scholarsIstvan HontJ. RuskinJeff WeintraubJohn KayJohn NSHJohn RawlsKarl PolanyiKlein and LucasLabourLecturesLectures On JurisprudenceLegislatorsLiassez-FaireLoney TunesM. le GendreMachiavelliMacro-economicsMagna CartaMandelvilleMark ScousenMark ThomaMarket FailureMarket Place of LifeMarshallMathematics EconomicsMatt RidleyMediocrity of CircumstancesMethodologyMichael IgnatieffMilgate and StimsonMillgate and StimsonMinskyMoralityMurray RothbardMy bookNatural LawNeuro economicsNew EconomicsNewsNicholas PhillipsonNorth AmericaP. J. O'RourkePerfect CompetitionPerfect LibertyPersonalPhillip NicholsonPhilosophising about ThingsPiracyPlatoPoor LawsPoor Man's SonPovertyPremier WenPrimogeniture and EntailProdigalityProprietyProstitutesPublic SpiritPublic WorksPufendorfQuesnayQuotesRealism SeriesRecessionReciprocityResearch NotesRhetoricRobert SolowRobert CrawfordRobert FranksRobert Skidelski Adam SmithSam FleischackerSamuel BrittanSamuel JohnsonSamuel PufendorfSavings and InvestmentSchumpeterSelf-InterestsSelf-loveSergi CremaschiSidgwickSlaverySmith biographySmith on InterestsSmith on NegotiationSmith's Lectures on JurisprudenceSmith's Sites TourSociologyStatute of ApprenticesSubsidiesSubsistenceSuperstitionSurvival of the fittestTariffsThe Age of CommerceThe GiftThe Great DepressionThomas HobbesTim HartfordUnnecessary thingsUnproductive LabourUtilitarianismVile MaximVisit to AustraliaVouchersWaggon WayWarrend SamuelsWealth Of Nations.and Bakerand Baker"aregrowth theoryishnessnecessitiesthe virtue of PrudenceAdam Smith's Lost LegacyGavinK9 AT gmail DOT comhttp://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)Blogger3912125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-6054721695488171116Tue, 22 May 2018 10:31:00 +00002018-05-22T10:31:30.569+00:00ANNOUNCEMENT<span style="font-size: large;">The 'best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft aglay' ... and etc (Burns).</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">I was a bit too optimistic about my health recovery in my previous announcements.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Things are not yet back to normal.&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: large;">This &nbsp;may take some time.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">In between being out of sorts these last few weeks I did&nbsp;manage to re-read all of <i>Wealth of Nations </i>for the third&nbsp;time<i>,</i> this time&nbsp;edited by Edwin Cannan, Professor of Political Economy at the University of London, and published by&nbsp;Random House in 1937.&nbsp;Quite an interesting trip down memory lane. And it is an excellent editorial effort by Edwin as soon became evident in my re-read.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Professor Cannan died in 1935 so his edition is out of copyright.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">I hope to&nbsp;recommence serious writing of my forthcoming book soon.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/05/announcement.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-9085970238103785367Sat, 28 Apr 2018 15:21:00 +00002018-04-28T15:21:08.325+00:00ANNOUNCEMENT<span style="font-size: large;"><b>ANNOUNCEMENT</b></span><br /><b><br /></b><span style="font-size: large;">I am cautiously pleased to announce that my recent illness seems to have abated and succeeded by a much&nbsp;more encouraging period of better health, such that I have been able&nbsp;to read and react to some serious reading on new aspects of Adam Smith's&nbsp;scholarship.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">While it is early to be sure, I have been able to think more&nbsp;clearly than was the case these months.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">This brings me to my current writing plans. Having worked on my '<i><b>Authentic Account of Adam Smith</b></i>', May, 2018, Palgrave Macmillan &nbsp;Springer (with the&nbsp;assistance of my daughter, Florence, who&nbsp;transferred my draft rough efforts into reasonable prose suitable for&nbsp;publication, which I wish to share&nbsp;with regular readers of my '<i><b>Adam Smith's Lost Legacy Blog</b>' some news.</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">I am pleased to&nbsp;announce that I am starting on writing what may/ could be, my latest and last book on Adam Smith.&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">No title has yet been drafted but it is envisaged to be on a theme regarding Adam Smith's perception of the social evolution of the growing 18th-century market economy,&nbsp;particularly on recent comparative perspectives of the history of several earlier episodes of the establishment, evolution and fate of distinctive&nbsp;market economies from the third century in at least three manifestations in east European and west Asian geographically located civilisations, and their shared fates long before they and their implications were noted in modern scholarship.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Many thank to those readers who sent to me their best wishes&nbsp;during my recent weird illness, now hopefully&nbsp;behind me.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Gavin Kennedy</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/04/announcement.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-650040616722354242Sun, 18 Mar 2018 12:59:00 +00002018-03-18T12:59:07.463+00:00WORTH A LOOK<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; width: 560px;"><tbody><tr><td class="the-post" valign="top"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 560px;"><tbody><tr><td style="vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap; width: 60px !important;"><a href="http://praxtime.com/author/praxtime/" style="color: #2585b2; display: block; margin-right: 10px;"><img alt="" border="0" class="avatar avatar-50" height="50" src="https://2.gravatar.com/avatar/bdf30547ca4c3fa9db18981c44191fe9?s=50&amp;d=identicon&amp;r=G" width="50" /></a></td><td><h2 class="post-title" style="color: #555555; font-size: 20px; margin: 0px;"><a href="http://praxtime.com/2018/03/17/saturday-links-17-mar-2018/" style="color: #2585b2; text-decoration: none !important;">Saturday Links 17-Mar-2018 Human tools 320k years old, Children and paychecks, Drake plays Fortnite, astronaut&nbsp;DNA</a></h2><span style="color: #888888;">by&nbsp;<a href="http://praxtime.com/author/praxtime/" style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136) !important;">Nathan Taylor (praxtime)</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="post-content" style="direction: ltr; margin-top: 1em; max-width: 560px;"><div style="color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-10062" data-attachment-id="10062" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;9&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;Canon EOS 5D Mark II&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1504915219&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;100&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;400&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.008&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;1&quot;}" data-image-title="satlinks 17-mar-2018" data-large-file="https://praxtime.files.wordpress.com/2060/03/satlinks-17-mar-2018.jpg?w=560?w=600" data-medium-file="https://praxtime.files.wordpress.com/2060/03/satlinks-17-mar-2018.jpg?w=560?w=300" data-orig-file="https://praxtime.files.wordpress.com/2060/03/satlinks-17-mar-2018.jpg?w=560" data-orig-size="600,221" data-permalink="http://praxtime.com/2018/03/17/saturday-links-17-mar-2018/satlinks-17-mar-2018/" sizes="(max-) 85vw, (max-) 67vw, (max-) 61vw, (max-) 45vw, 600px" src="https://praxtime.files.wordpress.com/2060/03/satlinks-17-mar-2018.jpg?w=560" srcset="https://praxtime.files.wordpress.com/2060/03/satlinks-17-mar-2018.jpg 600x, https://praxtime.files.wordpress.com/2060/03/satlinks-17-mar-2018.jpg?w=150 150x, https://praxtime.files.wordpress.com/2060/03/satlinks-17-mar-2018.jpg?w=300 300x" style="height: auto; margin-bottom: 12px; max-width: 100%;" /></div><div style="color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Commentary and links on what I found interesting to read this week.</div><div style="color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><strong>1. Middle Stone Age Tools 320k years old</strong>. Homo erectus (our ancestors) used<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acheulean" style="color: #2585b2;">Ascheulean stone hand axes</a>. These are big pear shaped rocks for cutting and pounding. Whereas Homo sapiens used more advanced stone tools, termed&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Stone_Age" style="color: #2585b2;">Middle Stone Age</a>. These include spear tips, scrapers, awls, etc. So the news this week is a paper&nbsp;<a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/03/14/science.aao2646" style="color: #2585b2;">Long-distance stone transport and pigment use in the earliest Middle Stone Age</a>, pushing back the date of Middle State Age tools to 320k years ago. That's 30k years earlier than previously known. These tools were also associated with pigment use, and transport of obsidian 100 km away, which implies trade networks.&nbsp;<strong>The main point is this new paper adds more support for a major shift in how we think humans evolved</strong>. The old view: Homo sapiens evolved modern physical form first, then only became modern behaviorally roughly 100-200k years later. See the wikipedia page&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity" style="color: #2585b2;">behavioral modernity</a>. Newer rising view (not yet reflected in wikipedia): Homo sapiens evolved out of the box with modern behaviors, or they followed very closely.&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/a-deeper-origin-of-complex-human-cultures/555674/" style="color: #2585b2;">Link to excellent Ed Yong piece</a>.</div><div style="color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 1em;"><b>COMMENT</b></div><div style="color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Interesting news, at least for me. Adam Smith was interested in the human past but without modern data. He speculated in his use of the four-phase hypothesis: savagery associated with human groups in the Forest; humans into primitive farming and hunting; agriculture and property; truck, barter and exchange; emerging into commerce ('at last'). {<i>Lectures on Jurisprudence</i>, 1762-3).</div><div style="color: #444444; direction: ltr; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.4em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Those periods are worthy of modern studies with reliable data. Perhaps source for my (last?) book.</div></div></td></tr></tbody></table>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/03/worth-look.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-739827877464074864Fri, 09 Mar 2018 14:57:00 +00002018-03-09T14:57:50.159+00:00Good Essay but Flawed<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Eva Schlunke</b> posts (9 March) on <b>PCES</b> a ‘Guest Post’: ‘<b>Dr Smith’s Prophylactic</b>’</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">HERE: <a href="http://www.post-crasheconomics.com/dr-smiths-prophylactic/"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">http://www.post-crasheconomics.com/dr-smiths-prophylactic/</span></a></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This readable essay is typical of its type, where its author summarises what she believes is an honest presentation of Adam Smith’s life and contributions to 18th-century social and intellectual life and its eventual absorption into the history of ideas.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“<i>From his townhouse window in Glasgow, overlooking a crowded marketplace, he watched people and pondered their motivations. He was curious, and he was there, a spectator at the delivery of the birth of the industrial revolution</i>.”</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Eva starts of her account revealing her imagination, not historical facts. Smith did not live in a Glasgow town house. As a student he lived on campus or in rented accommodation, which was an impressive set of buildings besides Glasgow’s Cathedral. As&nbsp;a&nbsp;Professor he also lived on campus in Professor’s Close with his mother and aunt. Neither accommodation overlooked a ‘crowded market’ though they were sited not far away.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Smith’s road from his Glasgow professorship was certainly direct but lasted 10 years in all. I discuss the circumstances in my new book, ’An Authentic Account of Adam Smith’, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018 (blatent plug!).</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Eva is an honest summariser but crams vast sweeps of history into short events. The ‘Industrial Revolution’ long postdated Adam Smith, who died in 1790. ‘Capitalism’ was unknown while Smith was alive - the word itself was first used in 1833 in an obscure English newspaper and much later in Thackery’s novel, <i>The Newcomes</i>.</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Modern authors should be careful when back-projecting modern ideas onto much earlier events. Apart from these quibbles, Eva Schlunke’s article is timely datewise and appropriately welcome as a memorial to a major intellectual event in the history of poltical economy.</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/03/good-essay-but-flawed.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-7998019588129034803Thu, 08 Mar 2018 19:17:00 +00002018-03-08T19:17:54.805+00:00ANNOUNCEMENT<span style="font-size: large;">My rather complicated recent/current illness continues with new twists and turns. Currently the initial storm phase has passed (hopefully) and remedial help will&nbsp;improve my condition by starting soon.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Its a potentially serious blood disorder for which interventions are required.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">The most obvious&nbsp;problem is one of maintaining attention to various&nbsp;projects plus my own writings.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Several&nbsp;projects&nbsp;are on my desk still awaiting my&nbsp;appropriate attention.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">I hope the&nbsp;affected editors&nbsp;forgive me by&nbsp;inability to focus the appropriate level of attention they&nbsp;require and deserve.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Nobody is more disappointed than I am, I can assure readers and editors.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Hopefully this period may correct itself sooner rather&nbsp;than later.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Very best regards.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">Gavin Kennedy</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br />http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/03/announcement.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-3013099458643315058Wed, 14 Feb 2018 14:54:00 +00002018-02-14T14:54:13.652+00:00APOLOGIESI HAVE BEEN IN HOSPITAL FOR SIX DAYS FOLLOWING THE SUDDEN AND SIGNIFICANT DROP IN MY BLOOD COUNT.<br />FURTHER INVESTIGATIONS ARE PENDING ON 26 FEB.<br />GAVIN<br /><br /><br />http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/02/apologies.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-819701422860620136Wed, 14 Feb 2018 14:48:00 +00002018-02-14T14:54:55.759+00:00DIRECT SUPPORT FOR LOST LEGACY ON THE INVISIBLE HAND<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;"><i><b>On Kennedy’s Literary Proof of the Impossibility that Smith had a ‘Theory of the Invisible Hand of markets’ in The Wealth of Nations, by&nbsp;</b></i></span><b style="font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Michael Emmett Brady, California State University, Dominguez Hills, Carson, California,&nbsp;</b></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Abstract-</b> G. Kennedy carefully examined the conflict that Smith covered in <i>The Wealth of Nations </i>brought about by Upper Income citizens that Smith classified as “ Projectors, Imprudent risk takers, and Prodigals” . Their behavior led to very detrimental , negative outcomes in the macro economy as a whole.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">2&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Invisible Hand that turned the self interested, self serving interests of the Projectors, Imprudent risk takers, and Prodigals into benefits for society as a whole. Instead, there was massive bankruptcy , economic decline,and depression. Kennedy’s literary proof has been ignored, as has Smith’s extensive discussion of this problem in <i>The Wealth of Nations</i>.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The reason for this may be that most modern economists have forgotten how the use of the English language can be applied to provide an effective economic analysis of an economic problem as demonstrated by Smith. A separate paper provides a purely mathematical treatment on this problem. It is available at SSRN. [</span><span style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3097609]&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That article translates Smith’s analysis of the impact of Projectors, Imprudent risk takers, and Prodigals on the macro economy into mathematics.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Section 1</b>.Introduction&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Adam Smith analyzed the impact in <i>The Wealth of Nations</i>(WN,1776) of a group of individuals he classified as Projectors, Imprudent risk takers, and Prodigals. Smith introduced the ”projectors “ on pages 114-115 of <i>The Wealth of Nations </i>(Modern Library(Cannan) Edition).He returned to them again on pp.279- 341.We will cover Smith’s neglected, but highly relevant analysis of the impact this particular group of individuals has on the economy as a whole.Section Three will cover Kennedy’s demonstration that no Invisible Hand could possibly be at work in any kind of situation where such a group is free to practice their own self interested actions. …</span><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">,,, </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Section 3</b>.Kennedy’s demonstration of the Impossibility that any such “Invisible Hand” Theorem can be ascribed to Smith&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Kennedy needs only one of the Adam Smith quotations from Section two above to make his point :&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“To restrain private people, it may be said, from receiving in payment the promissory notes of a banker for any sum, whether great or small, when they themselves are willing to receive them; or, to restrain a banker from issuing such notes, when all his neighbours are willing to accept of them, is a manifest violation of that natural liberty, which it is the proper business of law not to infringe, but to support. Such regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respect a violation of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural liberty of a few individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society, are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments; of the most free, as well as or the most despotical. The obligation of building party walls, in order to prevent the communication of fire, is a violation of natural liberty, exactly of the same kind with the regulations of the banking trade which are here proposed. .(Smith,1776,p. 308).&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Kennedy draws the following conclusions:&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A too liberal a lending policy, whether from fraud by borrowers(S &amp; L-junk bonds scheme,Dot.Com scheme, Sub prime mortgage banked bonds scheme) or from the false beliefs of bankers,was ruinous of the general interest of society…”(Kennedy,2008,p.110) </span><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">15&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“The self- interests of these players worked directly against the best interests of everyone affected by their actions. His frankness about imprudent behavior shows awareness that private interests are not always conducive to the good of society<b>. If this point were understood among modern economists, the consensus that Smith had a ‘theory of the invisible hand of the markets ’leading to harmony would be heard no more.”(</b>Kennedy,2008,p.110).&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Section 4.</b> Conclusions&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The claim that Adam Smith had an Invisible Hand Theorem that postulated that individual self interested,self serving decisions ,made at the microeconomic level, were transformed by market mechanisms into societal or social benefits for all at the macroeconomic level,is false .It is false because Smith’s sixty pages of discussions in the WN from pages 279-340,related to self interested,self serving</span><span style="font-size: 11px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">decisions, made at the microeconomic level by projectors and prodigals ,shows that this kind of behavior DOES NOT lead to societal or social benefits for all at the macroeconomic level,but to depression and the destruction of the banks unless bailed out by tax payers.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Kennedy is the only academic who has carefully sifted these pages of the WN.The only way that Kennedy’s literary proof,based directly on Smith’s own assessment of the Ayr bank’s collapse,as well as his great knowledge of other projectors ,such as the British East India Company’s ultimately failed projects in Africa,India, and the United States and John Law, is to, like West and Viner, try to sidestep the problem.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>COMMENT</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Naturally, I am obliged to Michael Emmett Brady for publishing his analyses of the modern misperceptions of Adam Smith’s reference to the ‘invisible hand’ metaphor that has acquired the unique status of a cult figure in modern economics since Paul Samuelson launched his erroneous theory on the world in 1948.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Readers can also sample Brady’s quality arguments on the invisible hand by following the link, and also read his thorough analyses of Keyne’s <i>General Theory</i> in a series of his papers ipublished in SSRN. [</span><span style="font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3097609]</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I would add Michael Emmet Brady to the albeit slowly growing list of modern economists who are waking up to myths of the invisible hand within their subject as presented by the majority of their colleagues across the world.</span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/02/direct-support-for-lost-legacy-on.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-4288596358899084170Thu, 01 Feb 2018 15:00:00 +00002018-02-01T15:00:44.989+00:00IS MATHS MEANINGFUL IN REAL WORLD ECONOMICS?<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Allan Sleeman</b>, Economics Department of <b>Western Washington University</b>, Bellingham, WA 98225, has written a draft paper that is very close to my own albeit somewhat muddled thinking on there being something wrong with traditional economic teachings on basic microeconomics, let alone Nobel Prize-winning maths constructs earning high incomes and prestige for their compilers.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I used to deliver the S-D constructs to first-year students of economics long ago in the late1960s through for many years into the 1980s.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am not able to post&nbsp; Alan Sleeman’s paper on Lost Legacy at the request of the author, but I recommend that teachers of economics contact Allan Sleeman to request a copy of it:</span></div><div style="color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="font-family: Times; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></i><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/project/What-Should-Economics-Majors-and-Economists-Know-About-the-Supply-and-Demand-Model"><i>What Should Economics Majors and Economists Know About the Supply and Demand Model?</i></a></span></div><div style="color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yes, it is basic stuff but if there is something wrong with its ideas surely&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">we should think about its wider implications?</span></div><div style="color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I certainly have on and off in recent years, especially where the&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">widespread use of mathematics is so prevalent, and worse, is taken&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">so seriously by scholars and policy makers.</span></div><br /><div style="color: #555555; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Perhaps I shall return to this subject in due course…</span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/02/is-maths-meaningful-in-real-world.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-4032663122499833280Mon, 29 Jan 2018 10:33:00 +00002018-01-29T10:38:30.066+00:00MODERN IDEOLOGY AND HISTORICAL FACTS<div style="font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">David Friedman’s comments on an old Lost Legacy Post (August 11, 2005):</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Adam Smith:</span></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: georgia; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">"The expense of the institutions for education and religious instruction is likewise, no doubt, beneficial to the whole society, and may, therefore, without injustice, be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society. This expense, however, might perhaps with equal propriety, and even with some advantage, be defrayed altogether by those who receive the immediate benefit of such education and instruction, or by the voluntary contribution of those who think they have occasion for either the one or the other."</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: georgia; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Friedman:&nbsp;</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: georgia; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Or in other words, some public funding of schooling is not unjust but an entirely private system is also not unjust and might even be preferable.”</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: georgia; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 6px;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">And this week, 2018) from David Friedman:</span></div><div style="color: #232323; font-family: arial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Smith in Book V of “Wealth of Nations” favoured state investment in defence (the ‘first duty of government’); justice (without justice society would ‘crumble to atoms’); public works for projects beyond private finance (roads, canals, harbours and bridges); education of youth (a school in every village)" Except that Adam Smith did not "favour ... state investment in ... education of youth." He has a very long discussion of the arguments for and against government involvement in education, in the course of which he raises a number of possibilities, including a modest subsidy to local schools--one paying only a minority of their costs. By quoting from the arguments for government involvement one can make it look as though that was the position his supported. By quoting from the arguments against ("Those parts of education, it is to be observed, for the teaching of which there are no public institutions, are generally the best taught") one can create the reverse effect. But his final on <a href="http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2005/08/there-are-regulations-and-regulations.html?showComment=1516802028978#c8116938954047936324"><span style="color: #00838f; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">There are Regulations and Regulations: some help, others hinder</span></a></span></div><div style="color: #232323; font-family: arial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Comment</b></span></div><div style="color: #232323; font-family: arial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Resurecting a debate about the education of 18th century youth that ignores context is more than a trifle disingenuous in the 21st Century.</span></div><div style="color: #232323; font-family: arial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At the time, most children (mainly the poor) in England did not go to school at all. Illiteracy was widespread. In contrast, in Scotland, most children did go to school following the reforms from the 16th-17th centuries that established ‘little schools’ in every village, mostly funded by local government and parents, enthusiastically supported by the (protestant) Church of Scotland. Also parents were encouraged (in Church sermons - then an active social media). - to send their boy children to school at least to read and write simple language until 8 years old. Adam Smith in the 18th century went to the village grammar school until he was 14 near to where he was brought up by his mother in Kirkcaldy. (The space where it was then situated is now small carpark).</span></div><div style="color: #232323; font-family: arial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But private education was largely unavailable except to the relatively well-off. That remains true over much of the world as it did until the 1880s in the UK.&nbsp;</span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div style="color: #232323; font-family: arial; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px;">David Freidman takes a narrow focus. Has he ever been poor - I mean really poor? I have and I can report that even very modest wealth is much better. My route out of poverty was education, almost all of it provided by the UK state and my own inner drive.&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/01/david-friedmans-comments-on-old-lost.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-3613428322310600639Sun, 28 Jan 2018 12:19:00 +00002018-01-28T12:19:08.183+00:00MORE GOOD NEWS<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Ursula Onions </b>posts on <b>“amaze UI’ t</b>hat includes includes a copy of my paper <a href="http://dkvw.nezennian.top/OH3a8-c9Ybw/There_is_no_invisible_hand_Adam_Smith/videoplayers.html">HERE</a> <b>, “Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand; from Metaphor to Myth”, </b>under the heading:</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;"><span style="color: #323333; font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 28px; letter-spacing: 0px;">‘There is no invisible hand Adam Smith’</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>COMMENT</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is part of an increasing trend across BlogLand for mentions of my conference paper to be made and for which I am grateful, whether they are supportive or critical.</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The metaphor of an ‘invisible hand’ is a misreading of Adam Smith bt moderm 20th century economists, particularly lead by Paul Samuelson in his popular textbook, Economics, McGraw-Hill (1948 in 19 editio and 5 millions sales to 2010).</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/01/more-good-news.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-1101225829050942757Sat, 13 Jan 2018 08:03:00 +00002018-01-13T08:03:26.536+00:00BUY THIS BOOK!<span style="font-size: large;">Alex Massie's and Mike Norman's reviews of the excellent long biographical essay by <b>Denn</b></span><span style="font-size: large;"><b>is Rasmussen</b> on the academic and friendly relationship between David Hume and Adam Smith : <b>The Infidel and the Professor</b>, Princeton University, 2017, continues to receive excellent reviews.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">I urge readers to order their own copies and/or to influence &nbsp;purchases by their departmental/university&nbsp;colleagues.</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;">&nbsp;&nbsp;</span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/01/buy-this-book.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-417388968615976330Sat, 13 Jan 2018 07:37:00 +00002018-01-13T07:37:46.488+00:00MIKE NORMAN ENDORSES LOST LEGACY ON THE INVISIBLE HAND<div style="color: #323333; font-family: Times; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Gavin Kennedy — Lost Legacy’s Stance of the Invisible Hand Is Endorsed by Mike Norman <a href="https://heterodox.economicblogs.org/mike-norman-economics/2017/norman-gavin-kennedy-legacies-invisible-hand-endorsed#comment-1314">HERE</a></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: Times; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">https://heterodox.economicblogs.org/mike-norman-economics/2017/norman-gavin-kennedy-legacies-invisible-hand-endorsed#comment-1314</span></div><br /><div style="color: #323333; font-family: Times; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.</span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/01/mike-norman-endorses-lost-legacy-on.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-671789272797991271Wed, 10 Jan 2018 08:53:00 +00002018-01-10T10:23:42.585+00:00AN AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT OF ADAM SMITH<div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #323333; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">&nbsp; &nbsp;An Authentic Account of Adam Smith by&nbsp;</span></span><span style="font-family: times; font-size: large; letter-spacing: 0px; text-indent: -36px;">Gavin&nbsp;Kennedy</span></div><div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #323333; font-family: Times; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">&nbsp; Table of contents</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #367da2; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #666666; font-family: &quot;times&quot;; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><u>Introduction</u> Pages 1-7&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #0176c3; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">&nbsp; <u>How Adam Smith Learned to Bargain</u></span><span style="color: #323333; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span><span style="color: #323333; font-family: &quot;times&quot;; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Pages 9-34&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #367da2; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #323333; font-family: &quot;times&quot;; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">&nbsp; </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><u>Adam Smith on Rhetoric and Perspicuity</u> </span><span style="color: #323333; font-family: &quot;times&quot;; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Pages 35-55&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #0176c3; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-63802-7_4"><span style="color: #0176c3; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Adam Smith on Metaphors</span></a></span><span style="color: #323333; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span><span style="color: #323333; font-family: &quot;times&quot;; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Pages 57-78&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #0176c3; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-63802-7_5"><span style="color: #0176c3; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Adam Smith and the ‘Invisible Hand’</span></a></span><span style="color: #323333; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span><span style="color: #323333; font-family: &quot;times&quot;; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Pages 79-116&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #0176c3; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-63802-7_6"><span style="color: #0176c3; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">The Social Evolution of Jurisprudence</span></a></span><span style="color: #323333; font-family: &quot;times&quot;; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"> Pages 117-139&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #0176c3; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-63802-7_7"><span style="color: #0176c3; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Smith’s Wealth of Nations</span></a></span><span style="color: #323333; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span><span style="color: #323333; font-family: &quot;times&quot;; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Pages 141-161&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #0176c3; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-63802-7_8"><span style="color: #0176c3; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Smith’s Alleged Religiosity</span></a></span><span style="color: #323333; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> </span><span style="color: #323333; font-family: &quot;times&quot;; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">Pages 163-196</span></span><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #323333; font-family: &quot;times&quot;; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">PUBLISHED NOW ON LINE - 2 WEEKS LATER IN PRINT</span></span></div><br /><div style="background-color: #fcfcfc; color: #323333; font-family: Georgia; line-height: normal; margin-left: 36px; min-height: 19px; text-indent: -36px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/01/an-authentic-adam-smith.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-4764099650952132423Wed, 10 Jan 2018 08:18:00 +00002018-01-10T08:18:42.822+00:00JESSIE NORMAN's NEW eBOOK PUBLISHED in USA<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Jessie Norman, </b>author of<b> “</b><i>Edmund Burke: The Visionary Who Invented Modern Politics</i><b>”</b> new e-book: <b>The First Economis</b>t <a href="https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/adam-smith-27">HERE</a> &nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Somewhat bizarrely Norman’s ebook is not available in the UK (yet?).</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="color: #595959; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><i><span style="color: #101010; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Synopsis”</span></i></div><div style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Adam Smith (1723-1790) is one of the great philosophers of the modern age. Acclaimed as the "father of economics," he influenced heads of state from Napoleon to Ronald Reagan and thinkers as diverse as Karl Marx and Milton Friedman, and is regarded as the emblem of today's free market neoliberal capitalism. His book The Wealth of Nations and its ideas of free trade and "the invisible hand" have become the gospel of economists and businesspeople around the world.</i></span></div><div style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>But just who was Adam Smith-the father of economics, a prophet of modern capitalism or a market socialist who inspired Karl Marx? A plagiarist of French and Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, or a true original? A didactic moralist, or a value-free neoliberal in embryo? Or something rather different, and vastly more interesting?</i></span></div><div style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>In Adam Smith, Jesse Norman reveals that Smith was not the founder of economics, nor the progenitor of free market capitalism, nor an advocate of complete market deregulation. He did not think of himself as an economist, and he would have repudiated the self-interested ethos of the modern capital markets. Far from being the foundation of today's neoliberal orthodoxy, his thought offers a deep critique of that orthodoxy. He is in truth a profound analyst and critic of economic fragmentation and social decay.</i></span></div><div style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Drawing on the full range of available sources-going far beyond The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations-Norman shows that Smith's great project was nothing less than a "science of man." Smith deduced that human sociability is rooted not in reason but in the imagination: in the sympathy that allows us to identify and find common ground with others who may be utterly different from us.</i></span></div><div style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Telling Smith's life and delving into Smith's thought, Norman disabuses readers of their false preconceptions, and argues that his actual ideas are of great relevance for us today. To Norman, Smith offers an ethical perspective on human affairs, a thoroughgoing critique of free markets and their governance, and a deep insight into the well-springs of human society and sociability. In short, Smith is not the cause of the Age of Inequality, but rather offers solution to it.”</i></span></div><div style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>COMMENT</b></span></div><br /><div style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Looks interesting. Makes a change from the dominant opinion of Adam Smith as the ‘founder of capitalism’ and the ‘theorist’ (sic) of the ‘invisible hand’, etc.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="color: #595959; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I shall have to explore Norman’s ideas in greater detail before commenting further.</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/01/jessie-normans-new-ebook-published-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-8830086239789519914Fri, 05 Jan 2018 16:13:00 +00002018-01-05T16:13:57.984+00:00ANOTHER UNINFORMED SOURCE ABOUT ADAM SMITH<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Door Jerome Crijins </b>posts 3 Jnauary, 2018 on Linked In <a href="http://youngadvisorygroup.nl/data-driven-capitalism-the-invisible-hand-in-2017/">HERE</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“Back in 1776, Adam Smith popularized the notion of an ‘invisible hand’ in the global economy. He was a liberalist </i><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">avant-la-lettre­</span><i style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> and profoundly believed in the unintended social benefits stemming from a free market. This mechanism would naturally steer a country towards welfare maximization. In the age of Google and Amazon, an entirely different invisible hand seems at play.”</i></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>COMMENT</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Wrong!&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Adam Smith did not “<i>popularis</i>e” the “<i>notion of an invisible hand in the global economy in 1776</i>”.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The words appeared ONCE only in his ‘<i>Wealth of Nations</i>’ published in London in 1776, and repeated in all five editions of his famous book up to 1789.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">BUT! And it is a big ‘but’.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Hardly anybody noticed Smith’s use of the now famous metaphor while he was alive, and nor for many years after he died until a few isolated mentions appeared in the 1870s. The absent non-mentions were evident even in the major volumes published by many of the leading political economists (Ricardo, Mill, etc.,) in the 19th century.&nbsp;</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Even after then, mentions of Adam Smith’s use of the now famous metaphor of ‘an invisible hand’ remained sparse, right through to the mid-20th century, when Paul Samuelson published his series of Econ 101 textbooks via McGraw-Hill from 1948 through to 2010, which included false claims about Adam Smith’s use of the now famous metaphor.</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/01/another-uninformed-source-about-adam.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-6364880461229169297Mon, 01 Jan 2018 08:15:00 +00002018-01-01T08:15:03.190+00:00TIM WORSTALL AND GOOD SENSE ON MARKETS<div style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: Times; font-size: 19px; line-height: normal; min-height: 23px;"><b style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Tim Worstal</b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0px;">l posts (1 January, 2018) on </span><b style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Adam Smith Institute</b><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; letter-spacing: 0px;"> HERE https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/?author=56f9031a356fb09629e92dbd</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="color: black; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>“</i><a href="https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/so-why-in-the-heck-are-we-doing-this-in-the-first-place"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>So why in the heck are we doing this in the first place?</i></span></a></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">”</span></div><div style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>The reason being that markets and the economy are complex things. It is impossible to calculate the effects through multiple iterations and third and fourth level effects. Thus, if intervention there is going to be that intervention has to be a simple one, a change to the price system. So that we can then use the price system and those markets as our great calculating engine. …</i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>… What did they do instead? They tried to be clever, tried and failed to navigate and calculate through the effects. Thus we end up with something entirely counterproductive, something both more expensive and also with higher carbon emissions. Not the point at all. …</i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>…And all the result of the fools thinking that we can plan something as complex as an economy. It really isn't just a failure of this particular plan, it's a failure of the very concept of detailed planning in the first place.&nbsp;</i></span></div><div style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>COMMENT</b></span></div><div style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have found over recent years that Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute, of which he is a Senior Felllow, writes more good sense as an economist than most others whom I read in Blog Land.</span></div><div style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">His New Year day’s piece (extracts above) is masterly and typical of his good sense as an economist.</span></div><br /><div style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Disclosure: I am a Fellow of the Adam Smith Society…</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2018/01/tim-worstall-and-good-sense-on-markets.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-7615613117917965464Sun, 31 Dec 2017 16:13:00 +00002017-12-31T16:13:08.908+00:00GREAT NEWS ABOUT ADAM SMITH'S PANMURE HOUSE<div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Heather McGreggor,</b> Dean of Edinburgh Business School, has announced (31 December) that Panmure House, former Home of Adam Smith from 1788 to 1790, in Edinburgh, is close to raising the final&nbsp;</span>tranche<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">&nbsp;of the necessary funds to complete its </span>restoration which &nbsp;was commenced in 2005. Below is the text&nbsp;of the official announcement of this excellent news.</span></div><div style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE BY KATE WHITEHEAD:</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Latest News about restoration of Panmure House where Adam Smith (1723-1790) lived from 1778-1790.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">How Hong Kong helped restore Adam Smith’s former home in Edinburgh to create venue for the world’s greatest minds to meet</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px;"><span style="color: #666666; letter-spacing: 0px;">Panmure House, the only surviving residence of the 18th century economist, is being turned into a hub for the latest academic thinking thanks in part to fund-raising in Hong Kong led by Bank of East Asia’s David Li.</span><b style="color: #67aacf; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">&nbsp;</b></div><div style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; min-height: 15px;"><span style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Keith Lumsden, founder of EBS – the graduate school of business of Heriot-Watt University in the same city – was an economist and passionate supporter of Smith’s ideas, and couldn’t bear to see the property go to waste. He arranged for EBS to buy it in 2008, and five years later led a fundraising drive to raise money to restore the house, which included a trip to Hong Kong.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Keith came out with the Duke of Buccleuch, a prominent supporter of the Panmure House restoration campaign,” says Andrew Burns, manager of the management office of Hong Kong’s Bank of East Asia (BEA). “His great-great-great-grandfather was mentored and taught by Adam Smith and he regaled us with some fascinating stories.”</span></div><div style="color: white; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #323333; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0px;">Two dinners in Hong Kong hosted by David Li Kwok-po, a knight and the chairman and chief executive of BEA, helped drum up support for restoring the 17th-century house. This included re-slating the roof, conserving the exterior stonework, and replacing the timber sash and casement windows.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“The single largest number of donors came from here and they were all convened by David Li,” McGregor says. “It would not be an exaggeration to say that this project would not even have got this far without the help of David Li. Hong Kong has been the most supportive community in the world.”</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But while that initial drive paved the way for the exterior of the house to be repaired, there was little follow-up and the project floundered. Then McGregor came along. A former investment banker, she was also known as “Mrs Moneypenny” after her entertaining weekly column in the <i>Financial Times</i> that ran from 1999 to 2016, in which she memorably referred to her three children as Cost Centres #1, #2 and #3.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In her column, Mrs Moneypenny came across as a doer. McGregor is much like that in the flesh, epitomising the saying: “If you want something done, ask a busy person.”</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“I started [as executive dean] on September 1 and we broke ground [on Panmure House] on October 12,” McGregor says.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Determined to get the project underway – so that they could make the most of a favourable currency exchange and get started before construction costs increased – McGregor decided to borrow the money to complete the renovation and then ask people to help repay the loan. She is hoping to raise £1 million (US$1.3 million) and the university will contribute on a matching basis.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is why she was in Hong Kong: first to thank donors and show them how far the project has progressed, and then to raise more funds.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">But why should Hong Kong care about an old building in Scotland? There are plenty of reasons, which start from back when Hong Kong was ceded to the British in 1842.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“The radical ideas that flowered in 18th-century Scotland changed the way the world thought and acted, and Panmure House sat at the heart of it all,” McGregor says. “When Hong Kong was founded as a trading colony, it was a time when Adam’s memory and ideas were very current.”</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There are also strong business ties between Scotland and Hong Kong, and there remains a strong Scottish presence in the city. “So many companies were founded by people coming here from Scotland. The whole of HSBC is essentially a Scottish bank. All the major hongs [foreign traders] here had huge Scottish representation,” McGregor says.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">McGregor also has strong Hong Kong connections – it is where she married her Australian husband and earned her PhD from the University of Hong Kong (HKU). Since university professors often wear the academic robes pertaining to their highest degree, she spends a lot of time in HKU robes</span></div><div style="color: white; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #323333; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0px;">The renovation of Panmure House is due to be completed in September 2018 and McGregor has big plans for the building – including bringing some of the world’s greatest minds and biggest thinkers to Edinburgh.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Every year we want a Nobel Prize winner to come to Panmure House. And we want visiting scholars to come, and PhD students from Hong Kong,” McGregor says.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The house will not serve as a residence, but is being set up so that it is part of the university. The two large rooms on the ground floor will serve as space for lectures, exhibitions and public talks. Of the two smaller rooms on the upper floor, one will be set aside for a Nobel Prize winner or other academic to study for short periods of time, and the other will accommodate two PhD students.</span></div><div style="color: white; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><span style="color: #323333; font-size: 18px; letter-spacing: 0px;">McGregor hopes to create something similar to The Friends of Cambridge University in Hong Kong, a group founded by Li in 1981. The group established and manages a scholarship fund that has since supported 170 Hong Kong students to do their undergraduate degrees at Cambridge University. McGregor hopes a similar scheme could regularly bring Hong Kong students to Edinburgh to do their doctorate degrees.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“I would like people to come from Hong Kong, go to Edinburgh and come back and say, ‘I did six months or a year of my PhD research at a desk in the house where Adam Smith lived’,” she says.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Smith entered university at a young age, earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Glasgow and got a postgraduate scholarship to study at Oxford University. McGregor is so familiar with the details of his life that she talks about him as though he were a personal acquaintance. “I feel like I’ve known him,” she says.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">She laughs as she recounts a letter Smith wrote to Scottish philosopher David Hume about his European grand tour with Henry Scott, the third Duke of Buccleuch.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Adam wrote to David Hume saying how bored he was. ‘Here we are, another day in Florence, another painting.’ He liked to surround himself with people and debate big ideas, and I don’t think endless culture was doing it for him,” McGregor say.</span><span style="color: white; font-size: 12px; letter-spacing: 0px;">ch will serve as </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">She hopes to continue that tradition of bringing great minds together to ponder great ideas.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“The important thing about a heritage asset is that it is used in a way that you could only use that building – and we’ll be doing that by bringing these incredible thinkers from all over the world,” McGregor says.</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“I hope that the association with Hong Kong continues for many years, and one of the ways I hope that happens is by creating a scholarship for people to come and study there. I would want to have it for Hong Kong nationals who got through their first degree here and then would like to come and do their PhD with us.”</span></div><br /><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Find out more about the project at </i><span style="color: #016391; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><i><a href="http://www.panmurehouse.org/">www.panmurehouse.org</a></i></span></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #016391; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b>COMMENT</b></span></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #016391; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b>THIS IS EXCELLENT NEWS.&nbsp;</b></span></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #016391; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b>I WAS A PROFESSOR AT EDINBURGH BUSINESS SCHOOL WHEN THE PANMURE HOUSE PROJECT WAS INITIATED &nbsp;BY OUR PURCHASE OF THE PANMURE HOUSE BUILDING FOR £800,000 FROM OUR OWN FUNDS AND DONATIONS. &nbsp;</b></span></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #016391; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b>I HAD ALSO RETIRED FROM THE UNIVERSITY &nbsp;TO CONCENTRATE ON ACADEMIC WORK, AND RESEARCH.</b></span></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #016391; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b>I HAVE KEPT AN EYE ON THE PANMURE HOUSE PROJECT SINCE THEN AND THIS NEWS IS A SPLENDID VISION THAT LOOKS FINALLY READY TO COMPLETE WHAT WAS BEGUN, AND KEPT ALIVE, UNDER PROFESSOR KEITH LUMSDEN'S LEADERSHIP.</b></span></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><b><span style="color: #016391; font-family: PT Sans; font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span></span></b></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><b><span style="color: #016391; font-family: PT Sans; font-size: medium;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I have&nbsp;</span>published three books on Adam Smith<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">:</span></span></b></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #016391; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b>2005: </b><i><b>Adam Smith's Lost Legacy</b></i><b>, Palgrave-Macmillan</b></span></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #016391; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b>2008: <i>Adam Smith: a moral philosopher and his political economy.</i> Palgrave-Macmillan (Great Thinkers is Economics Series). 2nd Edition, 2010, and in paper back.</b></span></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #016391; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b>2018: <i>An Authentic Account of Adam Smith.</i> Palgrave-Macmillan.</b></span></span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: 'PT Sans'; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="color: #016391; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><b>There have also been&nbsp;</b></span></span><b><span style="color: #016391; font-family: PT Sans; font-size: medium;">several academic Journal articles and book chapters in edited academic books, plus, of course this Blog.</span></b></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2017/12/great-news-about-adam-smiths-panmure.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-4595098575534624764Sat, 30 Dec 2017 12:33:00 +00002017-12-30T12:35:43.064+00:00An Authentic Account of Adam Smith Cleared for Publication in 2018<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Good News for my article on the “invisible hand”:</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Adam Smith and the <b><i>Invisible Hand: From Metaphor to Myth” </i></b>(2009) published in <b>Econ journal watch</b> 6(2):pp 239-263.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Up to December 20, 2017, it has been downloaded 500 times by readers HERE</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46530722_Adam_Smith_and_the_Invisible_Hand_From_Metaphor_to_Myth">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46530722_</a></span><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46530722_Adam_Smith_and_the_Invisible_Hand_From_Metaphor_to_Myth">Adam_Smith_and_the_Invisible_</a></span><br /><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46530722_Adam_Smith_and_the_Invisible_Hand_From_Metaphor_to_Myth">Hand_From_Metaphor_to_Myth</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>COMMENT</b></span></div><div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; color: #101010; font-family: Times; font-size: 22px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A relatively minor event in the wider order of things but for me a significant target in my much smaller academic world.</span></div><div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; color: #101010; font-family: Times; font-size: 22px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have noticed an increase in references to my arguments against the post-Samuelson myths of Adam Smith’s use of the now ‘infamous’ metaphor that distorts Smith’s literary intentions.</span></div><div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; color: #101010; font-family: Times; font-size: 22px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My new text, “<i>An Authentic Account of Adam Smith</i>” Palgrave-Macmillam, 2018, restores Adam Smith’s original arguments to clarify his clear intentions in 1776 (WN Book 4, Chapter IV, p 456).</span></div><br /><div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; color: #101010; font-family: Times; font-size: 22px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If you want to read it, follow the link and /or acquire my new book, scheduled for publication in 2018 by Palgrave.</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2017/12/an-authentic-account-of-adam-smith.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-3723070129560128257Thu, 28 Dec 2017 12:53:00 +00002017-12-28T12:53:21.083+00:00A TIDE TURNING?<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Dr Clark McGinn, Harrow-on-the-Hill, Middx, UK</b> (28 December) in the course of reminding readers of the <b>Financial Times</b> that Adam Smith had been a Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University, is slightly mistaken in respect of important aspects Adam Smith’s biographical details. HERE: <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e3a2592c-e589-11e7-8b99-0191e45377ec"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">https://www.ft.com/content/e3a2592c-e589-11e7-8b99-0191e45377ec</span></a></span></div><div style="color: #33302f; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>More to Smith than The Wealth of Nations</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Sir, Of course David Wilson and William Dixon (Letters, December 21) are correct in reminding us that economics is an offshoot of moral philosophy. Adam Smith held the chair of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow University as he wrote The Wealth of Nations. …</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Dr Clark McGinn</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Harrow-on-the-Hill, Middx, UK</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>COMMENT</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Adam Smith resigned his professorship in 1763 order to raise the funds that would enable him to research, and later to write, what became, more than a decade later, <i>The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations</i>. He was no longer a Professor of Moral Philosophy while writing the <i>Wealth of Nations</i>.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The influence of his earler <i>Theory of Moral Sentiments</i> (1759), which was written during his Professorship at Glasgow, is evident in his later composition&nbsp; of ideas in <i>Wealth of Nations, </i>written in his mother’s house in Kirkcaldy. In fact, reading both books is a minimal requirement for an understanding of Adam Smith’s contributions to 18th-century scholarship.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Here, I completely agree with Professor Clark McGinn’s assessment of the somewhat neglected role today of Adam Smith’s earlier <i>Moral Sentiments </i>and its affect on Smith’s <i>Wealth of Nations</i>.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There were also other influences from his university teachings equally neglected in modern scholarship.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I refer to Adam Smith’s <i>Lectures on Jurisprudence</i>, delivered during his entire Professorial tenure at the University of Glasgow. He delivered Jurisprudence up to his last week of teaching in 1763. Moreover, Smith selectively introduced verbatim multi-page-length extracts from his <i>Jurisprudence </i>lectures direct into his <i>Wealth of Nations </i>long after leaving Glasgow. I welcome <b>Dr Clark McGinn’s </b>contribution<b>.</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I am encouraged also by the recent writings of <b>Michael Emmett Brady</b>, California State University, who has published his significant contribution in the <b>Social Science Research Network</b> (SSRN). See his paper: <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3078415"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">https://ssrn.com/abstract=3078415</span></a> “Who Taught Paul Samuelson the Myth of the “Invisible Hand” at the University of Chicago? The most likely answer is Jacob Viner or fellow student George Stigler”.&nbsp;</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Taking <b>Dr Clark McGinn’s</b> letter in the <b>Financial Times</b> today with yesterday’s news of <b>Michael Brady’s</b> SSRN paper, are these signs that the tide of misinformation about Adam Smith is turning?</span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2017/12/a-tide-turning.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-5575804708253217523Tue, 26 Dec 2017 11:03:00 +00002017-12-26T11:03:14.473+00:00THE WORD IS SPREADING?<div style="color: #323333; font-family: Times; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">"Gavin Kennedy — Lost Legacy’s Stance of the Invisible Hand Is Endorsed by Mike Norman HERE</span></div><div style="color: #323333; font-family: Times; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">https://heterodox.economicblogs.org/mike-norman-economics/2017/norman-gavin-kennedy-legacies-invisible-hand-endorsed#comment-1314</span></div><br /><div style="color: #323333; font-family: Times; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; text-align: justify;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse."</span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-word-is-spreading.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-6342774988236234893Sun, 24 Dec 2017 16:08:00 +00002017-12-26T07:44:26.412+00:00LOST LEGACY'S STANCE OF THE INVISIBLE HAND IS ENDORSED<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Michael Emmett Brady,</b> California State University, has written an excellent article on Adam Smith’s use of the’invsible hand’ metaphor, its intended meaning and its misuse by<b> Paul Samuelson</b> in his exceptionally successful Econ 101 textbook,&nbsp; <i>Economics, </i>(1948, and another 14 editions to 2010, plus numerous translations, altogether upwards of 5 million copies sold, plus a lively second-hand used-book market).&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The wide circulation of Samuelson’s textbook, and his later prestige as a Nobel Prize-winner, created the modern myths of Adam Smith’s meaning in his use of ‘an invisible hand’ as a metaphor, that now dominates the disciplne and also dominates modern public media at all levels across all countries in the world.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Almost single-handedly, Paul Samuelson’s version of Adam Smith’s use of the ‘invisible hand’ metaphor dominates the economics discipline, both in academe and in popular media and discourse, since Samuelson published his textbook in 1948. In it he wrote:</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 5px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>“Even Adam Smith, the canny Scot whose monumental book, The “Wealth of Nations” (1766) represents the beginning of modern economics or political economy—even he was so thrilled by the recognition of an order in the economic system that he proclaimed the mystical principle of the “invisible hand” that each individual in pursuing only his own selfish good was led, as if by an invisible hand, to achieve the best good of all, so that any interference with free competition by government was almost certain to be injurious. This unguarded conclusion has done almost as much harm as good in the past century and a half, especially since too often it is all that some of our leading citizens remember, 30 years later, of their course course in economics. Actually much of the praise of perfect competition is beside the mark. As has been discussed earlier is a mixed system of government and private enterprise, as will be discussed later, it is also a mixed system of monopoly and competition. It is neither black or white, but gray and polka-dotted.</i>”</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Samuelson, P. A. 1948, p. 36. <i>Economics: An introductory Analysis</i>. McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. New York.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Interestingly, Paul Samuelson in the same paragraph diss-associated himself from his own bold assertion but readers of his textbook have ignored the implications of him doing so:</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“<i>This unguarded conclusion has done almost as much harm as good in the past century and a half, especially since too often it is all that some of our leading citizens remember, 30 years later, of their course in economics.” </i>(Samuelson, 1948, p 36)&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Most economists ignore Samuelson’s partial disavowal and continue to repeat the original headline assertion about Adam Smith’s alleged proclamation of the:</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“<i>mystical principle of the “invisible hand” that each individual in pursuing his own selfish good</i> <i>was led, as if by an invisible hand, to achieve the best good of all, so that any interference with free competition by government was almost certain to be injurious”.&nbsp;</i></span></div><div style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="font-family: &quot;helvetica&quot;;"><span style="font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">(Note the simile, 'as if'&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 14px;">which</span><span style="font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 14px;">corrupts</span><span style="font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">&nbsp;Smith's actual metaphor).</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Adam Smith is believed by Samuelson’s readers - that is about 5 million purchasers of his book, plus the large used-book market across its 19 editions - to have used the invisible hand metaphor to show a connection between the ‘invisible hand’ and market activity. (See Kennedy, G. 2010, ‘Paul Samuelson and the Invention of the Modern Economics of the Invisible Hand’. <i>History of Economic Ideas</i>, xviii/2010/3)</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">These believers included the top echolons of the economics profession across all of its schools and campuses, including Nobel Prize winners, holders of the most prestigious professorial Chairs, members of the editorial boards of the leading professional Journals, presenters at scholarly conferences, and graders of exam papers who were/are agreed on one thing, whatever their other academic differences, that Adam Smith’s alleged ‘invisible hand’ teaching was a significant historical contribution that is beyond challenge. In short, the false claims of Samuelson, and all those colleagues who accepted his assertions, dominates our scholarly work in economic theory and history. They are also in error.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">However, all is not lost. In a paper by Michael Emmett Brady, California State University, published in the <b>Social Science Research Network</b> (SSRN) he takes giant steps to demolishing Samuelson’s myth. Michael Emmett Brady writes the most significant contribution to the invsisible-hand debate since 1948:</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“<i>Who Taught Paul Samuelson the Myth of the “Invisible Hand” at the University of Chicago? The most likely answer is Jacob Viner or fellow student George Stigler” .</i>&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Its author takes the invisible-hand debate onto another level. Brady’s paper is available free via: <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3078415"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">https://ssrn.com/abstract=3078415</span></a></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I highly recommend that readers visit the SSRN web site and read Michael Brady’s paper.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">There is no substitute for reading Michael Emmett Brady’s relatively short paper. It would be invidious for me to attempt to summarise that which is down-loadable in full from SSRN. I shall quote from Brady’s thoughtful contribution below, but I urge readers to follow his whole argument from its SSRN original:</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Consider Viner’s first quotation:&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">”It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address&nbsp;</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages ...”</span><span style="font-size: 9px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;">&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The confusion caused by this quotation usually stems from the failure of a reader of the WN, such as Viner, to understand that the self interest of the WN is the Prudence of <i>The Theory of Moral Sentiments </i>(TTMS,1759), which Adam Smith regarded as his most important contribution because the WN is built, contrary to assertions to the contrary by Viner, on the bedrock of TTOUtility.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Smith would think it obvious to anyone that it is quite impossible for anyone, who has not applied the virtue of prudence first, to be able to exercise beneficence or benevolence because you can’t give to others what you do not have yourself. First, you must take care of yourself. This is also called self love by Smith because it will be futile to attempt to care for others if you can’t take care of yourself first.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Viner’s entire article is continually marred by a steady series of errors made about TTMS (See Brady.2017.Viner’s Erroneous Understanding of <i>The Theory of Moral Sentiments,</i>forthcoming ,SSRN).&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Prudence is the virtue of accumulating wealth, also called a nest egg or surplus, over time by hard work, nose-to–the- grindstone, stick-to-activity, planning, parsimony, frugality, and efficient use of one’s resources, so as to </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">maximise the return to one’s labours or business. “the butcher, the brewer, or the baker…” have families, wives, children, brothers, sisters, parents and relatives to raise, feed, clothe, house, educate, and help out occasionally. Profit maximising behaviour in one’s business is the virtue of prudence. It has nothing to do with the Utility maximising interpretation of self interest made by Jeremy Bentham. Therefore, if the “…the butcher, the brewer, or the baker,…” are not very successful, but are just making ends meet, it will be quite impossible for them to exercise benevolence. Thus, the successful application of the virtue of prudence is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one, for the application of the virtue of benevolence (Charity to others).</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Readers are strongly advised to read the entire short paper by Michael Emmet Brady HERE&nbsp; <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3078415"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">https://ssrn.com/abstract=3078415</span></a></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I would add a further comment that vindicates our criticism of the modern misreading of Adam Smith reference to “an invisible hand” by Paul Samuelson, and all those who followed his lead uncritically. Consider this sentence from Samuelson 1948, p 36:</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“<i>This unguarded conclusion has done almost as much harm as good in the past century and a half, especially since too often it is all that some of our leading citizens remember, 30 years later, of their course in economics.” </i>(Samuelson, 1948, p 36).</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This persuasive statement by Samuelson is quite “unguarded”, as well as revealing his limited appreciation of Smith’s use of the metaphor and ts influence on readers when first published and for many decades afterwards. Samuelson’s dating the influence of Smith’s use of “an invisible hand” in Book 4 of Wealth of Nations from 1776, was grossly misleading after WN was first published: “the past century and a half” from 1776 takes anonymous readers 150 years to 1926, add the past “30 years” this takes readers to 1956.&nbsp;</span></div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">However, it is a fact that next to nobody noticed Smith’s reference to ”an invisible hand” while Smith was alive, nor even for long after he died in 1790. His contemporaries ignored his use of the invisible-hand metaphor, as did the overwhelming bulk of 19th-century leading economic authorities until the1870s. The ‘invisible hand’ was ignored and taken as largely theological before and during Smith’s life time, not secularly as Smith used it. Whatever else was the effect of Smith’s secular use of the ‘invisible’ hand, Samuelson’s statements were factually wrong, though Samuelson’s &nbsp;readers apparently were and remain none the wiser.</span><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0px;">This fact leaves&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: 14px;">Michael Emmett Brady's readers well&nbsp;</span><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 14px;">informed ahead of the spreading realisation that Adam Smith's casual use of the "invisible hand" did not proclaim a new or significant theory as presented by modern (post-1948) readers. In fact, Smith's "invisible hand"&nbsp;reference was fairly innocent: a merchant investing his capital in a domestic market simply adds to domestic aggregate investment without any needed pre-intention to do so. Surely, an obvious&nbsp;consequence&nbsp;of the merchant's actions, and by the non-reaction of Smith's contemporaries and later luminaries among major&nbsp;political economists, who studied and taught from, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations until the end of the 19th century and beyond who ignored the supposed significance of the invisible hand. It took Samuelson's&nbsp;genius to give the invisible hand the (albeit, probably unintended) false significance it came to have from the 1960s, and continuing in 2017-18.</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>Michael Emmett Brady</b> has&nbsp;done modern economics (and Adam Smith's political&nbsp;economy) a great service in his SSRN paper.&nbsp;</span></span>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2017/12/lost-legacies-stance-of-invisible-hand.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-4996557455978668617Thu, 21 Dec 2017 11:55:00 +00002017-12-21T11:55:43.350+00:00NOBEL PRIZE-WINNER SHOULD DO BETTER<div style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 17px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Andrew Allentuck </b>posts (20 December) on <b>Financial Review&nbsp;</b></span><a href="http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/five-books-for-the-investor-or-economist-on-your-last-minute-shopping-list" style="font-size: 15px;">http://business.financialpost.com/personal-finance/five-books-for-the-investor-or-economist-on-your-last-minute-shopping-list</a></div><div style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; min-height: 18px;"><span style="font-size: 16px; letter-spacing: 0px;">“Five books for the investor or economist on your last-minute shopping list”</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px; line-height: normal; min-height: 13px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><i>Economics for the Common Good by Jean Tirole</i></b></span><span style="color: black; letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><br /></i></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Translated by Steven Rendall (Princeton University Press, 2017), 576 pages, $37.95.</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal; min-height: 19px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div><div style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>“</i><b>Jean Tirole</b><i>, winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, brings the dismal science back to the ethical questions and roots that led Adam Smith to transition from his first work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, to his better known Wealth of Nations. The former attempted to deal with being self-centered; the latter created the “invisible hand” to explain how pursuit of self-interest can provide for common good.</i>”</span></div><div style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>COMMENT</b></span></div><div style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I hope that <b>JEAN TIROLE</b>, a Nobel Laurate, will spend a little time reading Adam Smith before he repeats his awsome error in claiming that Adam Smith “created” the invisible hand to “explain how the pursuit of self-interest can provide for the common good”.</span></div><div style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">His assertion is so wrong on several levels that if Jean Tirole made similar errors in his mathematics he would embarras himself among his peers.</span></div><br /><div style="color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The fact that Andrew Allentuck did not pick up this awasome error is also not surprising. It reflects the state of modern economics and its lack of knowledge about both Adam Smith and the history of economics.</span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2017/12/nobel-prize-winner-should-do-better.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-7111552405508155876Wed, 20 Dec 2017 16:10:00 +00002017-12-20T16:10:59.922+00:00AND ANOTHER ANNOUNCEMENT<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Good News for my article on the “invisible hand”:</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Adam Smith and the <b><i>Invisible Hand: From Metaphor to Myth” </i></b>(2009) published in <b>Econ journal watch</b> 6(2):pp 239-263.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Up to December 20, 2017, it has been downloaded 500 times by readers <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/46530722_Adam_Smith_and_the_Invisible_Hand_From_Metaphor_to_Myth">HERE</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>COMMENT</b></span></div><div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; color: #101010; font-family: Times; font-size: 22px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A relatively minor event in the wider order of things but for me a significant target in my much smaller academic world.</span></div><div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; color: #101010; font-family: Times; font-size: 22px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I have noticed an increase in references to my arguments plus a growing number of other references critical of the prevailing consensus against the post-Samuelson myths of Adam Smith’s use of the now ‘infamous’ metaphor that distorts Smith’s literary intentions.</span></div><div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; color: #101010; font-family: Times; font-size: 22px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My new text, “<i>An Authentic Account of Adam Smith</i>” Palgrave-Macmillam, 2018, restores Adam Smith’s original arguments to clarify his clear intentions in 1776 (WN Book 4, Chapter IV, p 456).</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"> </div><div style="background-color: #f4f4f4; color: #101010; font-family: Times; font-size: 22px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If you have not read it yet, follow the link and /or acquire my new book.</span></div><div><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 18px; line-height: normal;"><br /></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2017/12/and-another-announcement.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-5288256605676202835Mon, 18 Dec 2017 09:56:00 +00002017-12-18T09:56:13.962+00:00ANNOUNCEMENTTHE FINAL CORRECTED PROOFS OF MY&nbsp;<b>AN AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT OF ADAM SMITH</b> ARE WITH THE PUBLISHER, PALGRAVE-MACMILLAN.<br />HENCE, I HAVE MORE FREE TIME FOR BLOGGING ONCE AGAIN, AS READERS WILL NOTE.<br />I SHALL BE EXPLORING ASPECTS OF ADAM SMITH'S THINKING IN OTHER AREAS.<br /><br /><br /><br />http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2017/12/announcement.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11437041.post-4838161684798778418Sun, 17 Dec 2017 11:47:00 +00002017-12-17T11:47:10.563+00:00GREAT ARTICLE MARRED BY MODERN ERROR<div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This morning, I read an arrticle on the considered thoughts of <b>Ryan Patrick Hanley</b>, the Mellon Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, Wisconsin, USA. Over recent years I have met with, listened, read and discussed Ryan’s considered views on Adam Smith (and his considerations are always worth thinking about). In short, he is certainly worth his full professorial title.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I recommend that Lost Legacy readers follow the link and read the full piece from which I have extracted my comments.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Incidently, congratulations to <b>Strategy + Business</b> for commissioning and publishing the interview.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: normal;"><i>“</i></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i>Smith articulated what we now call free market theory: the ways in which an unfettered economy, like an “invisible hand,” as he famously put it, organizes the activities of self-interested individuals to foster the common good.”</i></span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That may be a version of “free market theory” since Paul Samuelson famously misunderstood in 1948 what Smith wrote in 1776, but it is rather idolised mistakenly by most modern economists.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Market economies, ‘fettered’ or ‘unfettered’ have unavoidable consequences that may ‘foster the common good’, or they may in fact and instead, foster the common bad, or some mixture in between.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Smith’s metaphor is not necessarily describing metaphorically all the possible outcomes of all merchants’ actions from investing their capital in market activities. It may promote the ‘common good’ or it may not do so.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The metaphor describes in an “interestng manner’ (Smith on <i>Rhetoric</i>) a necessary outcome of the merchant’s actions. Specifically that his expenditures necessarily add to domestic aggregate demand. Why? Because one person’s expenditure cannot have any other consquence, given that one actor’s expenditure is another’s income, which in turn, when spent by the initial receiver of the actor’s spending contributes to a society’s aggregate demand.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Yes, that was Adam Smith’s simple point about the ‘invisible hand’ metaphor,which is so obvious - I have described it as ‘blindingly obvious’ - that literally nobody among Smith’s contemporaries, including his closest and intimate colleagues, and almost all of those 19th century political economists who wrote about his <i>Wealth of Nations</i> (Ricardo, etc), mentioned the invisible hand &nbsp;even when quoting from the very paragraph containing the ‘invisible hand’!&nbsp;</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Certainly, none of them drew the assertion manufactured by Paul Samuelson in 1948 — without whom there would never have been the modern myth of an ‘invisible hand’ theory attributed to Adam Smith!</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 3px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Nobody, nor any mysterious ‘force’ “organizes the activities of self-interested individuals “to foster the common good” in markets. There is at least two players in markets where buyers beget sellers, and sellers go onto beget sellers, and so on ad infinitum …</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One person’s expenditure becomes other people’s consumption. This can foster the ‘common good’ but it can also instead foster the ‘common bad’, for example, by using ‘dirty’ manufacturing processes or dumping waste irresponsibly.</span></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Whether successive rounds of expenditure are morally sound (<i>Theory of Moral Sentiments</i>) is a matter decided by observation. After all, in Smith’s example the very merchant involved directs his expenditure to the domestic market precisely because he did not trust the honesty of foreign merchants nor the probity of their legal systems. (WN IV.ii.9. p 456)</span></div><br /><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 4px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I recommend tthat you folllow the link and read the whole reference article because it contains an excellent account of the authoritative good sense of Ryan Patrick Hanley on Adam Smith.</span></div>http://adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.com/2017/12/great-article-marred-by-modern-error.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Gavin Kennedy)0